One thing you can do is begin to think about where you want to go and how you are going to get there. Just as you wouldn’t start driving from New York to Florida by heading north to Canada, it would be foolish to set the wrong course on your journey toward peace. Progress can only be made if you continue heading in the right direction, which means, of course, that you are heading in God’s direction.

When it comes to navigating the journey, think of repentance as a spiritual GPS that will keep you on course. The Greek word for “repentance” is metanoia, which suggests a radical turning away from sin in order to turn back to God. Without such a turning, all our efforts to become people at peace will fail. As Christians, we know that repentance is more than a one-time event. It’s something we need to do daily, making necessary course corrections whenever we falter.

Our lack of peace may or may not be attributed to our own sins. But sin is certainly a major obstacle in our quest to experience more of God’s peace. However you are feeling today, ask the Lord for grace to recognize the things in your life that are off kilter. As you admit your failings, imagine yourself turning from them and toward God, confident that he will abundantly pardon.   More

My daughter Katie attended elementary school with another Chinese adoptee by the name of Maggie. Though the two girls look nothing alike, people have always gotten them mixed up. This happened recently when a boy greeted Maggie by saying, “Aren’t you that bendy chick?” I laughed when I heard about it, because Katie is the bendy one, able to twist her wrists in a complete circle or bend her fingers straight back until they touch her hand. She’s the most flexible person I know.

When it comes to having peace, flexibility is an asset. I’m not talking about moral flexibility, of course—changing our values to fit the environment we’re in. What I’m talking about is finding ways to keep the big things big and the small things small.

So much of our stress comes from how we react to little things, like a messy house, a slow driver, a disappointing holiday. Unreasonably high expectations can wreak havoc on our sense of peace. But sometimes peace comes when we learn to lower our expectations, as long as doing so harms no one.

To find out how bendy you are, take note of the things that bother you this week. Consider making a daily list. At the end of the week, place a check next to the big things and a circle next to the small ones. Try to see if there’s a pattern in your response to the little things that bothered you—a need for control, an inability to tolerate loose ends, a streak of perfectionism. Then cross out everything with a circle beside it and consider how much better your week might have been had you responded to the little things more flexibly. In the days ahead, do your best to become a bendable person who is able to major on the majors and minor on the minors.   More

The best advice I have encountered on this topic comes from a man who surrendered his life to Christ in the early part of the sixteenth century, Ignatius of Loyola. Based on his own experience, Ignatius wrote what would become a spiritual classic. The Spiritual Exercises is a book that offers uniquely helpful guidance on discerning God’s will for your life.

In The Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius reminds us that we should make every decision with the proper end in mind. For a Christian, that end or purpose is to deepen our life with God. Embracing that principle reduces our anxiety because we realize that any decision we make is merely a means to that end. And why would God not want to help us when he has already told us, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you” (Psalm 32:8)?

As we pray, seeking God’s will for our lives, Ignatius tells us to notice how we are feeling. Pay attention, he says, to feelings of “spiritual consolation” (every increase in hope, faith, and charity) and to feelings of “spiritual desolation” (feelings of darkness, disturbance, temptation, and disquiet). Ignatius advises us to make the decision that moves our hearts toward spiritual consolation rather than desolation.

Of course, we should also seek the counsel of mature Christians who know us well and who can confirm or question a direction we are considering. Decision making doesn’t have to be fraught with confusion and anxiety. Instead, we can experience God’s peace as we seek his will.  More

It’s no secret that human beings are wired for pleasure. It’s what fuels our materialistic instincts. We get a quick rush from buying things. A friend of mine sells expensive laboratory equipment to hospitals. At the end of the day, she says, the purchasing decision is always an emotional one. Hospital employees, it seems, get a kick out of buying the latest, greatest gadgets and machines for labs and operating rooms.

Though it’s natural to enjoy buying things, we all know that such pleasures can become addictive. To keep the rush going, we have to keep buying more stuff. Doing so can empty our souls as well as our wallets, making us dependent on shallow pleasures.

If you doubt this, spend a little time taking inventory of all you own. Maybe your vice is shoes or clothes. Or maybe it’s being up on the latest in technology. Or maybe you think a new car or new decor for your home will make you feel good. But let’s be honest: how many of your possessions have given you anything resembling the peace your heart desires?    More

Speaking of honesty, let’s stop trying to put on a front, hoping others will think we’re better than we are. Doing so rarely fools anyone. The main problem with facades is that they discourage the work of the Spirit in us. God builds on truth, not falsehood. If we want to experience more of his grace, we need to lay our struggles and sins before him without pretension.

John Ortberg, in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted, shares his own struggle with pretension. “I am disappointed with myself,” he confesses. “I am disappointed not so much with particular things I have done as with aspects of who I have become. I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be. . . .

“I attend a high school reunion and can’t choke back the desire to stand out by looking more attractive or having achieved more impressive accomplishments than my classmates. I speak to someone with whom I want to be charming, and my words come out awkward and pedestrian. I am disappointed in my ordinariness. I want to be, in the words of Garrison Keillor, named ‘Sun-God, King of America, Idol of Millions, Bringer of Fire, the Great Haji, Thun-Dar the Boy Giant.’” ¹

What pretensions have you been holding on to in your relationship with God and others? Queen of America, Thun-Dar the Girl Giant, Idol of Millions? Whatever they are, have the humility and the humor to let go of them in God’s presence, trusting that as you do, he will build on the truth of who you are in Christ—Sinner Saved by Grace, Daughter of God, Beloved of the Lord.  More

¹ John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 11–12.

Sometimes our spiritual lives seem to be painted with a palette of gray as well. Nothing moves us. Nothing excites us. Everything seems bland and colorless. There are no discoveries, no words from God, no sense of his presence. Like the sun in winter, God seems to be hiding behind impenetrable clouds. On our worst days, the clouds turn from shades of grey to thick black, and we begin to wonder if God still cares for us or even knows what we are going through.

Though we may dislike them, clouds are necessary. They have a purpose. We’re grateful for snow that replenishes the groundwater and for spring rains that refresh the earth.

Spiritual clouds also have their purpose. Oswald Chambers says this about clouds: “It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child. . . . Until we come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.” ¹

What do you need to unlearn about God today? That he won’t help you find a way out of your present difficulty? That he is fickle—here today and gone tomorrow? That he will abandon you when life gets tough or when you make a mistake? That he didn’t mean it when he said he was your Father? Whatever untruths your heart is harboring, ask God to use the cloudy seasons in your life to simplify your relationship with him so your view of him as your loving Father becomes stronger.   More

¹ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, ed. James Reimann, updated edition (Grand Rapids, MI: RBC Ministries, 1935, 1992), July 29 devotional.

Imagine that you and I are walking down the street together when a storm suddenly breaks out. You kindly offer to share the overlarge umbrella you brought with you. But to your surprise, I refuse the offer and just keep walking, veering off in my own direction. When I finally arrive at my destination, soaked from head to toe, I complain to anyone who would listen that even though you had an umbrella, you refused to keep me covered. Wouldn’t that be a little crazy?

“Do not commit adultery” could morph into “Don’t sleep with anyone unless you’re in love.” “Do not worship any other gods besides me” could morph into “Go to church once a week, and then live however you please.” “Do not make idols of any kind” could become “Don’t worship statues, but feel free to dedicate your life to money, sex, or power.”

Many of us think of the Ten Commandments primarily in negative terms. Don’t do this; don’t do that. But listen to how God prefaces the giving of the Law on Sinai. He says to Moses, “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery” (Exodus 20:2). His people are to obey him not because he’s a cruel taskmaster but because he has rescued them from cruel taskmasters. Not wanting them to fall into bondage again, he tells them how to live a life that will be marked by his presence and peace.

Ignoring God in order to pursue our own desires will never yield the peace we seek. Doing so may make us happy for a moment, but a pattern of disobedience will eventually lead us into bondage.

Pray today for the grace to believe that the way to life lies not in having your way but in following God’s way.  Tell him you need his strength to live the life he wants for you—a life that is full of freedom and joy.  More

I wonder how much of the frustration and anger we feel would disappear if we were able to build regular times of rest into our lives. What if we designated one day a week to cease from our labor so our bodies and souls had time to regenerate? We could spend the day celebrating God’s love, expressing our trust in his provision as we enjoyed a meal shared with family or friends. We could do the things that bring us peace, such as taking a walk, playing games, reading, soaking in the bath—whatever rejuvenates us rather than depletes us.

Building Sabbath times into our lives takes commitment. As Wayne Mueller observes, “Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop. We do not stop when we are finished. We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our projects, get through this stack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow. We stop because it is time to stop.

“Sabbath requires surrender,” he says. “If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, then we will never stop—because our work is never completely done.”

This week why not give yourself at taste of Sabbath rest by reserving a day or an evening to reflect on God’s faithfulness and enjoy his blessings.  More

Then came the news that turned her self-perception upside down. When Marie was in her early teens, she discovered that her parents had conceived her out of wedlock. “It was hard enough to accept that my parents hadn’t wanted me,” she says. “The realization that God hadn’t wanted me either wounded me beyond articulation. I felt I’d been stamped defective and knocked out of the loop of grace.”

Marie struggled with feelings of anger and inadequacy. Then one night she was reading the story of Joseph, who had been sold into slavery by his older brothers. She stopped when she read his gracious response to them years later: “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:19-20, NIV).

Those words, she said, “slapped me stone still. I read them again and felt something inside begin to crumble. All the anger and resentment I’d harbored against God for rejecting me as a ‘B-plan’ child came flooding back. Encircling the Bible with my arms, I buried my head on the open pages and wept.”[1]

Like Marie, many of us feel wounded and inadequate. No matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, God says today that you are his “A-plan” child who will enjoy his best forever.   More